Deborah Herold competed with a borrowed cycle and yet she outpaced her rivals at the 500m individual time trial event of the 69th senior, 46th junior and 32nd sub-junior National track cycling championship held at LNCPE velodrome. She even set a new record, breaking her record from last year in the process.

Although she was not entirely happy with her borrowed cycle, Deborah managed to clock 36.377s as she improved on her mark of 36.470s that she set last year.

The cyclist from Andaman and Nicobar Islands was paired with Kezia Varghese for the event. However, Kezia had not recovered fully from a neck injury that she sustained during training. Hence, she could not give her best at the event.

Deborah, nonetheless, was merciless as she finished the race almost two seconds ahead of Kezia who clocked 38.358s. Anu Chutia from Assam claimed the third position by clocking 39.567s.

According to a report in The Hindu, Deborah expressed her discomfort with the borrowed cycle after the event. She said, “The cycle I use in Delhi is a different one and obviously better than the one I was riding here. This cycle was a bit big for me. However, I am satisfied with my performance as I had little competition here.”

Kezia’s injury is bad news for India as the team is set to compete in the Asian Track Championship scheduled to be held during 6-10 February 2017 in New Delhi. Deborah and Kezia are arguably the best in the country.

Kezia spoke to the Times of India after the event and mentioned that she would need some time to recover from her injury completely. “My hope to represent the country in the Asian meet is near to hopeless. I competed here because I was restless for the past two days and this (national meet) is held at home but Asian meet is a huge, I cannot rush on my fitness. Doctors said it (being neck) will take the time to heal,” she said.